The new rules of growing old gracefully

I was reminded an old post I made here, back when I could write. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to do it, or magically been zapped by some wicked witch, but I’ve just run out of time and enthusiasm. I wonder if that’s what happens to everyone in the end. When was the last good Metallica album you heard? Isn’t the best recent Ministry album a pale copy of Psalm 69? I might hope for a good new NIN album, but we’ll likely get a dull slab of corporate dad-rock with some tinkly bits.

What happened to us all?

We got old. Rock ‘n’ roll comes with a deadline, and when you reach it, time to die or move on. You’re not supposed to still be there at 50. 

The Google Glass feature no one is talking about

While I’m still laid up with this nasty bug, have a read of this scarily fascinating article.

Ghost World and the problem with nerd culture

The minute I saw Thora Birch in Ghost World, I thought she looked familiar. Not because I remembered American Beauty, or because she resembles Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games. I recognised her because I saw myself at that age – belligerently “different”, sneeringly aloof.

Later on, I realised that she was nothing like me at all – just like in Mean Girls, there isn’t much difference between the cruelty of the alternative kids and the snooty jock set, except that here almost everyone is trying desperately to please her and she throws it all back in their faces. 

15 of your favourite people … as ZOMBIES!

I don’t give much of a crap what Kim Kardashian looks like as a zombie, but Sarah Michelle Gellar is another matter. Those nice people at The Walking Dead have put online an app that allows you to to turn yourself into a shambling flesh-eater. Buzzfeed had a little fun with your mainstream celebrities, but I figured it would be much more fun to put the likes of Grimes and Bat For Lashes and the cast of Doctor Who through the zombie-making machine …

Someone obviously has waaaay too much time on their hands

Though it has got to be said: that Dragon Ball Z flipbook is pretty incredible … 

90210 (season one)

Princess Pickle (AKA “Noise Unit”) is sick again, so I’ve been stuck with this pink, fluffy limpet squeaking indignantly any time I try to remove her from my lap. Without the use of my arms (or legs, or lap for that matter), I had only one option: television. And not any television, either. Trash television.

It’s like the ultimate comfort food – a gloopy guilty pleasure that is sinfully satisfying. I first indulged in three episodes of The Vampire Diaries (season 4) before trying to find out when 90210 was coming back for a fifth season. I was annoyed to find out it was already halfway through, and not on 4 On Demand, so it was a very big, guilty-pleasure relief to find that Netflix has the whole of the first season, which I’d never seen.  

JR Ewing’s “guardian angel” and other WTF moments in soaps

I’ll have fond memories of Larry Hagman, who passed away yesterday, since JR Ewing starred in an incredible “WTF” moment in Dallas: that moment when you’re staring at the screen for ten full minutes after the episode has ending, wondering if someone’s slipped LSD into your tea. The soap was always a little offbeat, but occasionally veered into the outright preposterous. It’s not alone, though – every soap on TV has featured plotlines that were weird, baffling or just plain bizarre. 

The best of kids’ TV

With a tot in the house, I find myself watching way too much kids’ television. Some of it is quite entertaining.

THE HOOBS

A British puppet show from the Jim Henson stable. It’s sort of Fraggle Rock-ish, for toddlers, with a fun 70s-glam-rock-style soundtrack. 

The Claire Danes Cry Face Project

Thanks, Buzzfeed, for drawing my attention to this important work. Tumblr – that receptacle for all things awesome – plays host to a project documenting each of the times the wonderful Claire Danes has cried on screen.  

10 of the Most Hilariously OTT Death Scenes Ever

Kareteci Kız

This 1973 Turkish film has one of the funniest, silliest death scenes ever. Someone hand the guy an Oscar!
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